Is it my imagination, or are most organisations looking for more and more ways of being more efficient and more effective? Looking for savings here, making cuts there? It seems to have become endemic, an automatic reaction to any poor results or desire for greater profits. But where is the wisdom in all of this?
‘Engagement’ is the current name of the game. In Education, for example, students need to be fully engaged, and research staff need to be engaging with the wider community. Excellent. It’s common sense, but useful to highlight such needs and to commit to satisfying them. But . . .
From my observations, engagement is in danger of becoming just the latest in-thing that achieves very little. Why? Largely because it will be treated as the latest flavour of the month, in a short-term programme with a well-meaning intent and appealing words . . . but without really understanding what’s actually required.
When does a banana, or any other fruit for that matter, become ripe enough to eat? And at what point do they become over-ripe: too ripe to eat? I ask because both my partner and I have witnessed what to us is a huge waste: fruit that to us is still perfectly edible, but which other people are throwing away! Bananas are the case in point.
How can we best stay positive and hopeful during the next 2 years (and perhaps longer) during the Brexit process? How can we all, each and every one of us, play our part in smoothing the process and bringing about the best result for everyone: Brits and fellow Europeans alike?
Because isn’t that part of the reason the vote for Brexit went the way it did: that so many individuals felt excluded from the EU and related political and bureaucratic decisions and benefits? If we want a better, stronger Britain as a result, such factors have to be taken into account!
With so many untruths, if not downright lies being shared on social media these days, now more than ever we need a reliable way of separating fact from fiction. If we read something on-line, how do we know whether we can trust it or not?
What does the real you need? It needs to be heard! The trouble is, our inner voice is so often buried beneath doubts and fears or swamped by justifications and reasoning, usually trying to maintain things as they are . . because that’s what we’re comfortable with!
It’s all to do with side-stepping the rational mind with its theories and beliefs, and rising above our emotional mind, which all too often reacts through fear. Tuning into our bodies requires connecting into a deep part of us: that bit that really knows what we need . . . at all levels!